Sid Meier's Civilization is a turn-based strategy 4X video game developed and published civilisation pc game MicroProse.

The player is tasked with leading an entire human civilization over the course of several millennia by controlling various areas such as urban development, exploration, government, trade, research, and military.

The player can control individual units and advance the exploration, conquest and settlement of the game's world. The player can also make such decisions as setting forms of government, tax rates and research priorities. The player's civilization is in competition with other computer-controlled civilizations, with which the player can enter diplomatic relationships that can either end in alliances or lead to war. Civilization has sold 1. In addition to its commercial and critical success, the game has been deemed pedagogically valuable due to its presentation of historical relationships.

Civilization was followed by several sequels starting civilisation pc game Civilization IIwith similar or civilisation pc game scenarios. Civilization is a turn-based single-player strategy game.

The civilisation pc game takes on the role of the ruler of a civilizationstarting with one or occasionally two settler units, and attempts to build an empire in competition with two to seven other civilizations. The game requires a fair amount of micromanagement although less than other simulation games.

From time to time the player's towns may be harassed by barbariansunits with no specific nationality and no named leader. These threats only come from huts, unclaimed land or sea, so that over time and turns of exploration, there are fewer and fewer places from which barbarians will emanate.

Before the game begins, the player chooses which historical or current civilization to play. In contrast to later games in the Civilization series, this is largely a cosmetic choice, affecting titles, city names, musical heralds, and color. The choice does affect their starting position on the "Play on Earth" map, and thus different resources in one's initial cities, but has no effect on starting position when starting a random world game or a customized world game.

The player's choice of civilization also prevents the computer civilisation pc game being able to play as that civilization or the other civilization of civilisation pc game same color, and since computer-controlled opponents display certain traits of their civilizations this affects gameplay as well. The Aztecs are both fiercely expansionist and generally extremely wealthy, for example.

Other civilizations include the Americans, the Mongolsand Romans. Each civilization is led by a famous historical figure, such as Mahatma Gandhi for India. The scope of Civilization is larger than most other games. At the start of the game there are no cities anywhere in the world: the player controls one or two settler units, which can be used to found new cities in appropriate sites and those cities may build other settler units, which can go out and found new cities, thus expanding the empire.

Settlers can also alter terrain, build improvements such as mines and irrigationbuild roads to connect cities, and later in the game they can construct railroads which offer unlimited movement. As time advances, new technologies are developed; these technologies are the primary way in which the game changes and grows.

At the start, players choose from advances such as potterythe wheeland the alphabet to, near the end of the game, nuclear fission and spaceflight.

Players can gain a large advantage if their civilization is the first to learn a particular technology the secrets of flight, for example and put it to use in a military or other context. Most advances give access to new units, city improvements or derivative technologies: for example, the chariot unit becomes available after the wheel is developed, and the granary building becomes available to build after pottery is developed.

The whole system of advancements from beginning to end is called the technology treeor civilisation pc game the Tech tree; this concept has been adopted in many other strategy games. Since only one tech may be "researched" at any given time, the order in which technologies are chosen makes a considerable difference in civilisation pc game outcome of the game and civilisation pc game reflects the player's preferred style of gameplay.

Players can also build Wonders of the World in each of the epochs of the game, subject only to obtaining the prerequisite knowledge. These wonders are important achievements of society, science, culture and defense, ranging from the Pyramids and the Great Wall in the Ancient age, to Copernicus' Observatory civilisation pc game Magellan's Expedition in the middle period, up to the Apollo programthe United Nationsand the Manhattan Project in the modern era.

Each wonder can civilisation pc game be built once in the world, and requires a lot of resources civilisation pc game build, civilisation pc game more than most other city buildings or units. Wonders provide unique benefits to the controlling civilization. For example, Magellan's Expedition increases the movement rate of naval units. Wonders typically affect civilisation pc game the city in which they are built for example, the Colossusevery city on the continent for example, J.

Bach's Cathedralor the civilization as a whole for example, Darwin's Voyage. Some wonders are made obsolete by new technologies. The game can be won by conquering all other civilizations or by winning the space race by reaching the star system of Alpha Centauri. British designer Francis Tresham released his Civilization board game in under his company Hartland Trefoil.

Avalon Hill had obtained the rights to publish it in the United States in There were at least two attempts to make a civilisation pc game version of Tresham's game prior to Danielle Bunten Berry planned to start work on the game after completing M. The success of Seven Cities in in turn led to a sequel, Heart of Africa. Bunten never returned to the idea of Civilization.

Sid Meier and Bill Stealey co-founded MicroProse in to develop flight simulators and other military strategy video games based on Stealey's past experiences as a United States Air Force pilot. Specifically with SimCityMeier recognized that video games could still be entertaining based on building something up. By then, Meier was not an official employee of MicroProse but worked under contract where the company paid him upfront for game development, a large payment on delivery of the game, and additional royalties on each game of his sold.

Among other works, Shelley had been responsible for adapting the railroad-based board game developed civilisation pc game Tresham into The Game of Railroads and Robber Barons. Shelley had joined MicroProse finding that the board game market was weakening in contrast to the video game market, and initially worked on F Stealth Fighter. Meier recognized Shelley's abilities and background in game design and took him on as personal assistant designer to brainstorm new game ideas.

Railroad Tycoon was generally well received at its release, but the title did not fit within the nature of flight simulators civilisation pc game military strategy from Civilisation pc game previous catalog. Meier and Shelley had started a sequel to Railroad Tycoon shortly after its release, but Stealey canceled the project.

One positive aspect both had taken from Railroad Tycoon was the idea of multiple smaller systems working together at the same time and the player having to manage them.

Some time later, both discussed their love of the original Empire computer games, and Meier challenged Shelley to give him ten things he would change about Empire ; Shelley provided him with twelve.

Meier described civilisation pc game development process as sculpting with clay. Meier and Shelley completed Covert Action which was published in Once Covert Action was released, Meier and Shelley returned to the prototype. Civilisation pc game time away from the project allowed them to recognize that the real-time aspect was not working well, and reworked the game to become turn-based and dropped the zoning aspect, [2] a change that Meier described as "like tossing the clay in the trash and getting a new lump".

The competition is what makes the game fun and the players play their best. At times, you have to make the player uncomfortable for the good of the player". Meier felt players would be able to use the technology tree to adopt a style civilisation pc game play and from which they could use technologies to barter with the other opponents.

Computer Gaming World reported in that "Sid Meier has stated on numerous occasions that he emphasizes the 'fun parts' of a simulation and throws out the rest". Scrape it off". He said that by contrast, minefields and minesweepers caused the computer to do "stupid things If you've got a feature that makes the AI look stupid, take it out. It's more important not to have stupid AI than to have good AI". Meier also omitted jets and helicopters because he thought players would not find obtaining new technologies in the endgame useful, and civilisation pc game multiplayer support because of the small number of online players "if you had friends, you wouldn't need to play computer games" ; he also did not believe that online play worked well with turn-based play.

This process was slowed by the current vice president of development, who had taken over Meier's former position at the company. This vice president did not receive any financial bonuses for successful publication of Meier's games due to Meier's contract terms, forgoing any incentive to provide the needed resources to finish the game. He cut the map's civilisation pc game in half less than a civilisation pc game before Civilization 's release [9] after playtesting revealed that the previous size was too large and made for boring and repetitive gameplay.

Other automated features, like city management, were modified to require more player involvement. Most of the game was originally developed with art crafted by Meier, and MicroProse's art department helped to create most of the final assets, though some of Meier's original art was used. Shelley wrote out the "Civilopedia" entries for all the elements of the game and the game's large manual. The name Civilization came late in the development process. Meier had noted the board game's influence but considered it not as great as Empire or SimCity[7] while others have noted significant differences that made the video game far different from the board game such as the non-linearity introduced by Meier's technology tree.

To avoid any potential legal issues, MicroProse negotiated a license to use the Civilization name from Avalon Hill. This approach worked, according to Meier, and he would continue this naming scheme for other titles in the future as a type of branding. Because of the animosity that MicroProse's management had towards Meier's games, there was very little promotion of the title, though interest in the game through word-of-mouth helped to boost sales.

Following the release on the IBM PC, the game was ported to other platforms; Meier and Shelley provided this code to contractors hired by MicroProse to complete the ports. Civilization was released with only single-player support, with the player working against multiple computer opponents.

Civilisation pc gameInternet or online gaming was still in its infancy, so this option was not considered in Civilization 's release. This led to the release of Sid Meier's CivNet. CivNet allowed for up to seven players to play the game, with computer civilisation pc game available to obtain up to six active civilizations.

Games could be played either on a turn-based mode, or in a simultaneous mode where each player took civilisation pc game turn at the same time and only progressing to the next turn once all players have confirmed being finished that turn. The game, in addition to better support for Windows 3. CivNet also included a map editor and a "king builder" to allow a player to customize the names and looks of their civilization as seen by other players.

According to Brian Reynoldswho led the development of Civilization IIMicroProse "sincerely believed that CivNet was going to be civilisation pc game much more important product" than civilisation pc game next single-player Civilization game that he and Jeff Briggs had started working on. Reynolds said that because their project was seen as a side effort with little risk, they were able to innovate new ideas into Civilization II.

Civilization 's critical success created a "golden period of MicroProse" where there was more potential for similar strategy games to succeed, according to Meier.

Stealey wanted to continue to pursue the military-themed titles, while Meier wanted to continue his success with simulation games. Meier would continue and develop Civilization II along with Brian Reynoldswho served in a similar role to Shelley as design assistant, as well as help from Jeff Briggs and Douglas Civilisation pc game.

This game was released in earlyand is considered the first sequel of any Sid Meier game. As a result, Meier, Briggs, and Reynolds all opted to leave the company and founded Firaxiswhich by became a subsidiary of Take-Two. After a number of acquisitions and legal actions, the Civilization brand both as a board game and video game is now owned by Take-Two, and Firaxis, under Meier's oversight, continues to develop games in the Civilization series.

Civilization has been called one of the most important strategy games of all time, [20] and has a loyal following of fans. This high level of interest civilisation pc game led to the creation of a number of free and open source versions and inspired similar games by other commercial developers.

Computer Gaming World stated that "a new Olympian in the genre of god games has truly emerged", comparing Civilization civilisation pc game importance to computer games to that of the wheel. The reviewers gave the game 5 out of 5 stars. They commented: " Civilization is one of the highest dollar-to-play-ratio entertainments we've enjoyed.